Author and Writing Coach

The Reaction Lead

To write an effective lead, writers need to understand that the lead of a story often has a tension or problem. Readers continue to read to find a resolution to the tension as the story unfolds.

A reaction lead starts with the internal thoughts of the main character. It often defines the problem in the story immediately. Mystery writer Mary Higgens Clark does this in the opening lines of her novel No Place Like Home. The main character says:

I cannot believe I am standing in the exact spot where I was standing when I killed my mother. In it I see my reflection. My face is deadly pale. My eyes no longer seem dark blue, but black, reflecting all the terrible visions that are leaping through my mind.

This kind of lead allows the readers a peek inside the head of a character, which helps them understand what makes the character tick. This type of story is written in first-person point of view using the pronouns I, me, my and myself. This gives the reader an opportunity to vicariously be the main character, who is the narrator. It brings the reader closer into the story’s plot and the character’s experience, feelings, and decisions.

Can you identify a short story or novel that starts with a reaction lead? Let’s see how many we can list in the comment section below.

Work Cited

Clark, Mary Higgens. No Place Like Home. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005. Print.

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2 Responses

I meant to respond to this the first time I read it, but better late than never, I guess. :>) I don’t have a reaction lead to contribute right now but I want to mention that years ago I sat in on writing workshops with an instructor who taught what he called “the rule of two”: that every story should begin with a scene with at least two characters, not just one. His favorite example was that if you wrote a story with a character waking up in bed alone, you should change that to a character waking up in bed with somebody else. His concern, I think, was that he wanted his students to avoid writing stories that were too static, and his advice made a big impression on me. What he was after might sound entirely different from a “reaction lead” that begins with the thoughts of the main character, but when I read the example you gave, Linda, it occurred to me for the first time that the “second character” needn’t necessarily be physically present or even alive. The narrator whose words open this novel is obviously still haunted by her mother. The mother is a *presence* in that opening, even though she’s dead (and was killed by the narrator, no less! :>)) I think this is a good example of being both a “reaction lead” focused on the thoughts of the main character *and* following the spirit of “the rule of two,” even though in an unconventional way. I don’t know if it would strike others this way, but it makes me think of how so often writing joins together things that are seemingly opposed, such as a character who is physically alone but psychologically very involved with someone else.